It’s not discipline

3:45 am. It never doesn’t hurt. Wake up, work out, go to work, repeated like Groundhog Day. That was the first two years of my lifting life. At the time, my schedule, the distance from the gym, and my commute to work, left me no choice but to wake up painfully early to get a workout in.

I still don’t know how I did it, but some otherworldly force peeled me out of bed every morning to train. Back then people used to tell me it was discipline that drove me. But I never considered myself very disciplined, so it must have been something else.

Listening to the brilliant body hacker Charles Poliquin on the Bulletproof Podcast this week, he said something that finally explained that what that thing was. When asked about the discipline needed to make major life changes, he said, “it’s not discipline, it’s self love.”

My father recently lost almost 200 lbs. He didn’t use any tricks, gimmicks or shortcuts. He just woke up one day, and decided that he didn’t want to die. With that ounce of self love, the discipline and restraint fell into place on its own.

Next time I’m deciding if I want that piece of candy, or deep-fried whatever, I’ll remember that I don’t need any discipline to say no, I have something more powerful than that.